Maritime Law Book Acquired by Former CanLII CEO

By Alan Kilpatrick

In exciting news, Maritime Law Book (MLB), a stalwart of the Canadian legal publishing industry for the past 40 years and creator of the popular national reporter system, was purchased by Colin Lachance on November 1st.   This is good news for those who were mourning the demise of MLB, previously reported by Slaw last August.

Lachance is well known in Canada as the former CEO of CanLII and a legal entrepreneur.  He was recognized as a Fastcase50 Legal Innovator in 2013, American Bar Association Legal Rebel in 2014, and among the 25 most influential Canadian lawyers in 2014 by Canadian Lawyer magazine.

Purchasing a case law publisher in today’s economic climate is a bold move.  However, Lachance’s involvement with MLB will surely lead to some exciting advancements for Canadian legal researchers:

“The pace of technological advancement is accelerating, and we want to bring the benefits of that advancement to legal researchers,” says Colin Lachance. “In addition to smarter search, we will provide high demand tools like visualizations that allow you to more quickly zero in on the cases you need, and we will deliver personalized research trails that help you train our system to learn what’s important to you.”

The development is also sure to shake up Canada’s staid legal publishing industry, a near duopoly.  You can learn more about the purchase from the MLB press release.